


Dead Not Gone

by CraniumCulverin



Category: Utopia (TV 2013)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 07:36:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17700290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CraniumCulverin/pseuds/CraniumCulverin
Summary: Lee was gone. Dead and gone. Lee wasn’t back and would never be back. Wilson refused to think about it anymore.





	Dead Not Gone

It starts small.

Wilson sees Lee smoking down a hallway. He does a double take, sees no one. A week later he’s walking past a lobby, and there’s Lee, smiling at him as he passes. Wilson backpedals despite the people he’d been walking with, but there’s nothing. Just empty seating. He returns with an apology, walks faster.

Eventually Lee starts showing up for longer. Out of a window, strolling down the sidewalk, waiting at a bus stop, green bag in hand. Every time Wilson sees him, he sees Wilson. Lee smiles, sometimes raising his cigarette in recognition, sometimes waves with an arm that had been paralyzed. Never saying anything. He’s always too far away to do anything about. Wilson would have to yell, pullover, walk up to him. He wasn’t going to draw anymore attention to himself over this. Lee was gone. Dead and gone. Lee wasn’t back and would never be back. Wilson refused to think about it anymore.

For a while there isn’t anything. He even pretends to forget.

One night Wilson’s alone in his office and Lee says hello. Wilson whorls around, knocks a few papers off his desk as he catches himself. Lee’s just sitting there, in that stupid yellow suit, arm tucked in, smiling. He lights up a cigarette as the questioning starts. And when Wilson says he killed Lee, shot him right in the face, Lee nods, says he’s very much aware. There’s a hole in his forehead as he breathes out smoke, a mess of blood and brain matter framing his face. Wilson blinks and it’s gone, Lee’s gone. Just empty sofa. When Wilson finally turns back to his desk Lee’s lounging in his desk chair. Wilson screams and stumbles back, hits the coffee table, falls flat on his ass. Lee doesn’t laugh, just leans forward and asks if he’s alright.

Wilson is very certain he’s not alright.

He doesn’t risk everything by talking to anyone about this. He knows it has to be his own head that Lee is coming from. He considers researching hauntings, vengeful ghosts, trickster spirits. Lee actually laughs at him when he starts looking. Wilson does his research anyway, but knew Lee was right - this wasn’t anything but Wilson losing his mind. Which means not telling anyone, ever.

So Wilson lives with it. With an imaginary Lee showing up everywhere he goes. An imaginary Lee that he hates himself for remembering so damn much about, because he acts just like the real one did. The same damn gestures, looks, movements, comments - everything just as the real Lee did.

He knows Lee is in his head, and so does Lee.

Lee points it out often, that he isn’t real, that he’s just a part of Wilson. He likes taking guesses as to what part of Wilson’s fucked up mind he’s from, or is. He’ll point out little discrepancies, things that Wilson sometimes noticed, sometimes didn’t. It pisses Wilson off. He pays more attention to Lee.

Sometimes Lee is partially paralyzed like the real Lee was when he died - sometimes both arms work and he walks fine. Sometimes Lee smokes or lights up, sometimes he doesn’t. Lee always wears colorful suits, sometimes without the jacket. He wears the yellow one he died in a lot. When Lee shows up in the blue one sans blazer there’s almost always a hole in his side, a cloud of red trailing behind him. It makes Wilson feel weird. Sometimes Lee shows up in a stupid color like bright green or light pink, or blood red or deep lavender. Or just a different shade of yellow, with green socks instead of purple.

Wilson hates that he notices these things, that he was looking for them.

But Lee couldn’t catch him off guard when he did. Saying things like Wilson had never even seen Lee wear this color. That he didn’t even own a suit in this color or that shade when he was alive, not that Wilson would’ve known. That if Wilson had ever wanted to see him in something different he could’ve just asked.

Wilson fucking hates Lee. Sometimes he swears he hates Lee more now that he’s dead. He thinks about how much he wants to kill the man all over again, daydreams about it sometimes. But even in daydreams Lee taunts him, tells him he’s nothing but Wilson’s own fucked up mind as Wilson imagines holding a gun to his head. Like Wilson doesn’t remember the last billion times he’d said as much. Like Wilson hasn’t grasped the idea yet.

He always pulls the trigger in those daydreams. Never feels any better.

Sometimes Lee doesn’t smile or talk. Just stands there and watches. Not even Wilson - just whatever’s around, whatever’s happening. It makes Wilson feel something he can’t place. It goes on like that for a while until Wilson wants to scream. Scream at Lee to just say something already, just do something if he’s gonna be here. Wilson never does - Lee speaks up first, every time.

Smiling like he knows something Wilson doesn’t.

One time, as Wilson’s making an example of a failed operative, Lee’s standing off to the side, watching. He walks around the crying man to lean into Wilson’s personal space. Wilson smells smoke on breath that isn’t there, tries not to lean back as if away from someone as he gives the order. Lee says he’s been thinking; what if Wilson has Lee around because he’s scared? Wilson is instantly pissed. Lee knows he hates it when he said vague shit like that, that he’d have to ask about to understand. Covered by the man’s strangled screams, he asks what Lee means under his breathe. Lee smiles, eyes only on Wilson as the man slumps over, red-stained room suddenly silent. He says he thinks that Wilson knows he’s become a sick son of a bitch. That he’s scared of knowing he’s a psychopath, and has Lee around to distract him from it.

Wilson tells the person filming to clean up through clenched teeth, turns on his heel and leaves the room. Lee’s laughter fades quickly as he makes the long way back to his office. He opens the door, breathing rough. Looks up to see Lee reclining in Wilson’s desk chair, feet propped up on the desk. Wilson feels something he can’t name. Lee’s watching the smoke rise from his cigarette, adds to it as he exhales. He looks over at Wilson and smiles.

Wilson regrets killing Lee. He doesn’t know it.

Lee does.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to hegodamask's Utopia tag and edits over on tumblr I got pretty hooked on the relationship between these two, which in turn got me hooked on understanding the show. Originally posted on my tumblr, figured it belongs here considering it's the first thing I've written beside anonymous drabbles in... years.  
> This was written without having watched the show and only reading up on it - apologies if things are off or OOC.


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